The narrator, Robinson , a schoolteacher who lives in Las Vegas, finds himself a childless widower when Dolan, a wealthy crime-boss, has Robinson's wife murdered in order to prevent her from testifying against him. The murder is never solved, and Robinson, unskilled in the arts of revenge, has no recourse. Over a seven-year period, however, haunted mentally by his wife's voice, Robinson devises a scheme of retaliation.